Wild Orchid by Cameron Dokey

respect or love her more. I could see Zao Xing’s body quiver with the effort it took to not cling to my father, to keep her fear and despair to herself. Not once did she beg my father to stay with her and the unborn child she carried. Not once did she plead with him to not allow history to repeat itself.
    Instead she, Min Xian, and I worked together to make sure my father would have everything he needed when he rode away to war. We sewed a fur lining inside his cloak, for he was heading north and the weather would be cold.
    We made sure the leather of his armor was waterproof and supple. My father cared for his weapons and his horse himself. And all of us waited for special word from the emperor calling my father to return to his duties as a general. Surely, after all Hua Wei had done to defend China, the Son of Heaven would request my father’s experience once more.
    But the days came and went, and no message from the emperor arrived. And though he tried to hide his pain at this, it seemed to me that with every day that passed my father grew older before my eyes. Until finally the night before he had to depart arrived. By then we all knew the truth: There would be no special summons. When my father went to fight, it would be as a common soldier. This increased the chance that he would not come back alive.
    We ate a quiet dinner the night before my father’s departure. Zao Xing’s eyes were red, signaling she had been crying in private. But she sat at my father’s side and served him his dinner with her customary grace.
    From across the table I watched the two of them together. I saw the way my father angled his body toward her as he sat, a gesture I think he made without knowing it. I saw the way their fingers met as shepassed him dishes, lingered for a few moments before moving on to their next task.
    They are showing their love for each other without words , I realized suddenly. And though I was sure they would do so later in the privacy of their own apartments, it seemed they were also saying good-bye. As I watched them demonstrate their love, I felt a resolution harden in my heart. It was one that had been taking shape there for many days, ever since word of the muster had come, but that I had allowed myself to clearly acknowledge only that night.
    I cannot let him go , I thought.
    My father had as quick and agile a mind as ever, a mind that could have been used against the Huns. But his body was growing old. The wound that had sent him home in the first place had been slow to heal. There was every reason to suppose my father would not survive another injury. Against all odds he had found happiness. My father had a new, young wife who would give him a child, perhaps even a son.
    If I had been a son, I could have gone to fight in my father’s place. My father could have remained home and our family could still have kept its honor. But I was not a boy; I was a girl. A girl who could ride a horse, with or without a saddle. A girl who could shoot an arrow from a bow made for a tall, strong man and still hit her target. A girl who had never wanted what other girls want. A girl unlike any other girl in China.
    I must not let my father go to fight , I thought. I will not .
    I would not watch my father ride away, and then stay behind to comfort my stepmother as she cried herself to sleep at night. I loved them both too much. And I had waited too long for my father to come home in the first place to stand in the door of our home now and watch him ride away to die.
    And so I would do the only thing I could to protect both my father’s life and our family’s honor: I would go to fight in his place. I would prove myself to be my father’s child, even if I was a daughter.
    I waited until the house was quiet and then waited a little longer. I had no way to make certain the others were asleep. If I’d had to make a guess, it would have been that none of us would get much sleep that night. But finally the walls themselves